Discourse on Freedom with a Rat

In the end, he supposed, exhaustion would mean that even this most unnerving of noises would not wake him. For now though he could consider himself lucky. Whenever the rat scurried from cover in order to look at him more closely, the scratching of its little claws on the stone floor brought him quickly to his senses.

At least, he assumed that it was always the same rat; this little rodent jailer; his sole companion. These dungeons, the darkest and dreariest corner of the principality which, for the most part, pretended to some manner of civilisation, must, he reasoned, be home to thousands of rats. But there was something about this one that made it quickly familiar to him: it was a creature of habit; it always followed the same paths through the dungeon floor detritus; it sat and washed its paws in the same place and tilted its head in the same way as it watched him.

“Perhaps you have first claim on this cell” he said to the rat. His cracked lips pained him as he spoke. “Perhaps I belong to you.” The rat was impassive; as usual, it rested its head to one side.

His arms ached and his wrists, red raw in the manacles, bled continually. He pulled again from right to left against the ring which retained the chain. He sucked air through clenched teeth as his effort wore yet more flesh from his bones. The rat came a little closer. Yesterday he might have kicked out at it; today he found that he was more tolerant.

“Look at them” he said, turning his face towards his window on the world. “Little do they consider the likes of you and I; our miserable drama here in this hole in the ground.” The rat, who rarely if ever spared a glance for the semi-circular grate high overhead, did not turn away from the man chained to the wall.

“I hope that at least they can smell this filthy place.” But he knew that in truth the street above was barely any sweeter than a dungeon. In fact he realised, at liberty, the people of the city might well have had to wade through more shit than even the benighted denizens of the netherworld below.

As if to confirm his suspicion, a lady passed by and, in a vain effort to keep them clean, hoisted her skirts to just below her knees. Her ankles were slim and her calves were shapely. It hurt his mouth to smile at the thought that this woman could have no idea that, in trying to lift her clothes from the mud, she afforded a precious glimpse of her legs to a prisoner just below her as she passed. What a liberty he could take to enjoy such a sight.

“I do believe” he remarked to the rat, “that the same lady passed just the other day.” The rodent, running here and there for a little while before returning to its vigil, was inattentive,

It was not only this lady who made a habit of passing by. It seemed that most of the sets of legs he saw were, after a little while, familiar. He even began to associate voices and snippets of conversations with pairs of legs and styles of boots. The was an odd way in which to observe the urbane spectacle of city life, but nonetheless only confirmed in full clarity the truths he had long suspected of his fellow citizens.

How they played so faithfully the roles which decorum demanded of them; enlightened and sophisticated these city-dwellers, not to be mistaken for the peasants in the fields beyond the walls, and yet how in their encounters they bowed, and observed every form of politeness, one might say rather of hypocrisy. How little frankness or verity he could hear from the sunlit world above.

He looked at the rat who looked at him; the rat that awaited its chance. “You are at least more honest than them.” Fastidiously the rat washed its paws, as if before a meal.

“The rules they live by make a mockery of their freedom” he added to the nodding rat, “and yet, in reality they too are often engaged in this menacing pastime of yours, hoping to take a chunk out of their neighbours. Yes, you are right of course, there is a price to pay for breaking the rules.” He laughed a croaky laugh and then grimaced. “A major part of which for me is this discourse with a rat.”

He tugged again on the chain and fancied that the stubborn link inched closer to passing through the retaining ring. The pain made him shudder, and a warm dark droplet of blood cooled and slowed as it ran down his forearm.

There would be the trial and the humiliation; there would be the self-satisfied smiles of the people who had never liked him, and of the people who, although they had never known him, had decided that he was worthy of their animosity.

Even prior to the day of the trial, there would be more of this: more hunger, barely relieved from time-to-time with bread as hard as stone; more thirst, slaked at long intervals with dark water drawn from some foetid well. And throughout, the aching limbs and the cold relentless pressure of floor and wall, and other discomforts worse than all of these.
He pulled again on the chain and cried out, startling the rat just a little.

Of course there were the indignities; days chained to a wall cannot pass without the rapid onset of indignities. At least with thirst and hunger, and a certain nervous knotting of the body's normal processes, the indignities had slowed.

“I expect that they will show me the instruments of torture.” The rat came closer again, as if drawn forwards by this intriguing and delicious idea. “I dare say that that would have been rather more effective before they subjected me to this place and to your company. Not that I mean to suggest that you are in any way bad company. On the contrary, it is clear to me that you are an excellent fellow, free from all duplicity.”

He summoned his strength and gave an enormous heave on the chain. It moved suddenly, three links through the ring to his right hand side. He laughed and the laughter turned to sobbing, tears ran freely down his cheeks. At last, he lifted his hand to his face and scratched his nose; he rubbed his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair and beard. He wiped away his tears and smiled a broad lip-cracking smile. “Never let them tell you rat, that persistence does not pay. Look at me. I would not have reached the position in life that I have today had it not been for perseverance. But of course I do not need to tell you that. How many poor souls have you sat with until they freed themselves from this mortal coil and you could gnaw the flesh from their bones?”

And, one hand free to soothe his face, he thought. He reflected on his life and his work; how he had come to be chained to a wall and awaiting trial, and above all, on the freedom to do just this, to think, to consider.

As the half-moon grate grew light with the coming of another dawn, he lifted his head to the sound of the scurrying rat. “You know” he said “they showed Galileo Galilei the instruments of torture, twice. He agreed never to teach or to write of his heretical ideas again, never to mention his proof of the notions of Copernicus to anyone. Galileo promised never even to talk to a Protestant. In order that he might avoid being compelled to discuss his ideas with the likes of you rat, he gave his word that he would not give his work to heretics.”

The dungeon door screeched open and the rat ran quickly out of sight. Supposedly freer than his charges, the shambling mound of a man who played jailer in this place, brought bread and water. He made to shove the crust into the prisoner's mouth, but was met with a shake of the head.

“Jailer, if you please, I would crave an audience with His Eminence the Lord Cardinal. Please convey to your master that I wish to confess and to humbly beg forgiveness.”

The jailer grunted, sloshed water in the prisoner's direction and finally shoved the bread into a reluctantly opened mouth. With that he left, slamming the door behind him. The rat re-emerged, cautiously returning to the middle of the cell.

The prisoner spat the bread in the direction of the rat. “Why do you regard me with such contempt rat? Have I made pretence to be your superior or even your moral equal? Eat the bread rat, because I am sorry to tell you that you shall not be eating me. Oh you will not eat it? You consider me a coward and you will not share a repast with a coward? Well you listen to me. They can make me promise, they can threaten me with the rack, but they cannot change what is in here.” He tapped his head. “I will live and I will breathe, and I will be free to think. I will be as free as you are rat. You think that you can judge me, but you will come back for that crust. You will come back.”

The rat though, turned and ran back for the crack in the stone wall where she lived. She wouldn't give the man the satisfaction of seeing her take his crumbs, oh no, she would wait until he had gone, until she could eat alone without his constant talking.